Supreme Court doesn't bar revote in primary

July 13, 2002|By Christi Parsons, Tribune staff reporter.

SPRINGFIELD — Clearing the way for a new election to correct a faulty Illinois House primary, the state Supreme Court on Friday declined to step in and avert plans to hold the unprecedented revote this fall.

As a result, election officials are on course to hold a do-over election Sept. 10 for the West Side Chicago and west suburb House seat. In the initial election, some ballots were not counted, some were lost before an official recount and others were mistakenly cast by voters who didn't live in the district.

A Cook County judge last month ordered a new primary election in the race between Democrats Dorothy Reid and Deborah Graham.

On Friday, justices declined to take up a direct appeal of that ruling, leaving an appeals court to hear complaints from Reid. She had been declared the winner after a coin flip to break a tie between her and Graham, opening the door to a court challenge soon after the March primary.

Election officials took the high court's order as a sign that the justices probably won't block the September election, for which election officials have already begun preparing ballots. As far as they can tell, there has never been a replacement election held in Illinois, because close elections are traditionally settled by manual recounts by lawyers from both sides.

Lawyers for Graham think the Supreme Court's decision suggests the justices aren't inclined to stop the September election at all.

"If [the justices] had thoughts that this case was of great public magnitude, that it would affect people throughout the state, they would have taken the case," said Burt Odelson, Graham's lawyer.

But one of the Reid side's arguments is that if the courts allow a new election, the state could end up reconsidering lots of close calls in years to come, which would lead to chaos.

Mathias Delort, the attorney for Reid, said, "It sets a bad precedent. Ballots are lost all the time. If this is the standard, we'll just keep rerunning every close election."